Fans are your followers. Your subscribed audience.

They have deliberately clicked on a link in your profile or on one of your hubs that says "Join such-and-such's fan club". 'Such-and-such' being your username of course.

By doing this action they will have you in their Your Favorite Hubbers list.

You'll see them when you visit the HubPages homepage under 'Your Featured Favorites'.

And if you can also be emailed every time one of your favorite Hubbers publish a hub. This can be turned on or off in your Profile Settings page where it says "Notify me when my favorite authors publish a new hub?"

That's the facts.

From here on out I will be sharing personal opinion and experience. If you don't agree... you may express your own in the Comments section at the bottom of this module.

I am the fan of less than 20 Hubbers. I currently have the notifications of new published hubs switched off. But that's due to the rather large amount of hubs that is currently being produced because of the HubChallenge.

I have 500+ "fans". I say "fans" rather than fans, because the name makes me cringe, while I may write for readers, visitors or an audience, the very mention of "fans" makes me feel like I'm a pompous rockstar (the only thing that I find more irksome is when people use the word "guru" to describe themselves).

Despite the distaste I feel in my mouth when I say "fan" I do think it is important. I'm not going to get hung up on the concept that much that I can't get appreciate the fact that it is a powerful feature of HubPages.

As mentioned, whenever you publish a hub, your fans: who are subscribed, and who have notifications switched on, will get an email letting them know that you have just finished baking a fresh new hub.

Within an hour or two you'll see a sizeable jump in the traffic stats from virtually 0 (though it's probably already counted you as a visitor) to however many fans are feasting on your new offering. If you've got a Comments capsule, and if the subject lends itself to discussion, you should also see a few of those people leaving feedback. But don't expect 100% visitor participation.

Lets call it "famming" shall we.

Famming is the practice of joining as many fan clubs as they can for a few reasons:

1. The more people they fan the more links there are back to their profile.
2. In the hope that the person they have fanned will fan them back.
3. That the person being fanned will be so delighted at getting a fan that they'll immediately look through all their hubs and give them all a thumbs up, leave a comment in each and every Comment capsule, will send the link to everyone in their email address book, and name their firstborn after them.

Okay, I went a little too far with that last scenario, but you know what I mean.

But does all this "Fan Whoring" actually get a person anywhere?

I don't really know. I have seen hints by HubPages staff that long famming runs can cause the fammer to be hit in the Author personal Hubber Score. In fact I think I've seen it happen to one prolific famming Hubber. It was evidenced in his hubtivity in his profile page, he was complaining bitterly about his sinking hubscore so I took a closer look at his activity... pages and pages of people who he had fanned.

Just to make it obviously clear, I don't like the practice of famming. And I'm not naive enough to think that all my fans are my fans because they love my work. I'd be surprised if 20% of my fans are geniune in their fandomship. My advice is to fan those who you truly admire. Whose work you honestly love to read. Of people with whom you have a lot of respect or a special connection.

There are no rules why you should fan another, its just personal preference.

When you join a fan club you have the opportunity to leave "fan mail". What you say is up to you. But you can't edit or delete that comment, so think about what you're going to say.

People will leave your fan club for various reasons:

1. You didn't fan them back. So they were obviously famming you.
2. They've realised that they really not into what you're publishing.
3. Their account has been deleted or banned. If a person is banned for breaking the site rules, they will automatically be removed from every fan club they've joined.
4. They've been hit with an onslaught of email notifications and they didn't realise that they could turn it off.
   

When you leave a fan club you're not expected to justify your actions or give a reason.

People fan others for various reasons. Some because there is a connection between the writer and the reader. Sometimes because a person wants to garner as many fans as they possibly can and think the way to do it is to fan as many as they can en masse.

I am obviously unimpressed by the latter.

I feel that the best way to gather fans, is to write about the things you like. The things you know. The things you love. Because then real people will see that you're real and they'll want to read more. Or they'll do it as a means to bookmark you to find you when they're surfing the net aimlessly and they remember that there's someone who writes stuff that entertains them or educates them or informs them.

They're the people... dare I say it... I'm a fan of.

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